Hero
by Alanna
Summary: A songfic to Mariah Carey's "Hero," about Harry's life, covering the years with the Dursleys.


There's a hero **__**

Hero

There's a hero

If you look inside your heart

You don't have to be afraid

Of what you are

"In the cupboard! Now!" Petunia Dursley ordered. Her four-year-old nephew looked puzzled.

"But what did I do?" he asked quietly, his voice edging into a whine.

"You provoked Mummy's little Duddy-boy, isn't that right?" Her grotesquely fat son came up, clutching a triple-dipped ice cream cone and smirking.

"But… but… he hit me first!"

Petunia's only answer was to pick Harry up by the scruff of his neck and throw him in.

Minerva McGonagall, in cat form, whispered in a voice etched with pain: "Lily Evans died for this?"

__

There's an answer

If you reach into your soul

And the sorrow that you know

Will melt away

"Why don't I have any parenth?" asked five-year-old Harry. "All the other boyth at thchool have parenth, why don't I?"

"Your good-for-nothing mother and father died in a car crash," was his aunt's short, sharp reply. "Nobody wanted you but us, and we were good enough to take you in, to give you clothes, to feed you – and, I might add, at great expense to us!"

Harry frowned. It didn't seem like his classmates' descriptions of how their mothers and fathers treated them, but he couldn't figure out what was wrong.

__

And then a hero comes along

With the strength to carry on

And you cast your fears aside

And you know you can survive

So when you feel like hope is gone

Look inside you and be strong

And you'll finally see the truth

That a hero lies in you

"Harry Potter?" asked the small man in the top hat. "You're not… Harry Potter?"

"Yes, that's my name," the seven-year-old boy replied, quickly scanning the shelves for Petunia.

"Oh, forgive my speaking so bluntly to you, sir!" the man said as he knelt. "I just was not sure…"

"You don't need to bow to me or anything." Harry was puzzled.

"Ah, but I do, sir, I do!"  
  
"How did you know me?" A spark appeared in the boy's green eyes.

"Lily's eyes…" the man muttered, mostly to himself. 

"You knew my parents? How? Did they really die in a car crash? Who are you?"

And with that, Petunia seized him by the hand, slapped him across the face, and dragged him out of the store.

__

It's a long road

When you face the world alone

No one reaches out a hand

For you to hold

****

Excerpt from Witch Weekly, November 1, 1989

On the anniversary of Lily and James Potter's deaths, Witch Weekly asked reporters to kindly inform us about the boy hero Harry Potter's (now eight years old) life. Their reports are no less than disturbing.

"Harry lives in a cupboard."

"His cousin uses him for a punching bag."

"He gets the table scraps."

"He's quiet in class. His teachers like him, but no one else does."

"Harry has grown up without love." 

"Harry has never known love."

"Harry doesn't know the meaning of the word 'love'."

__

You can find love

If you search within yourself

And the emptiness you felt

Will disappear

Harry Potter clenched his teeth silently. He'd been up a tree – literally – for the past ten hours, ever since his aunt Marge had arrived with her horrid bulldog Ripper. He wouldn't cry. He _couldn't_ cry. He was ten years old; he was too old to cry.

"If my _parents_ had been alive, this never would have happened," he thought rebelliously. It was his favorite mode of striking out against the cruel world. An insubordinate tear made its way down his grubby cheek, and he blinked ferociously.

He looked up at the moon; it was full. Somewhere, something howled, a long, low howl.

Harry shivered.

And then, as if by magic, a snow-white owl winged its way across the moon. Followed by another. And another.

Harry stared in wonder, then smiled a tentative smile.

Below, Marge called Ripper off, but the boy didn't even notice.

Inside, the Dursleys slept.

From somewhere else, Lily Potter smiled a smile to match her son's.

__

And then a hero comes along

With the strength to carry on

And you cast your fears aside

And you know you can survive

So when you feel like hope is gone

Look inside you and be strong

And you'll finally see the truth

That a hero lies in you

Harry Potter shifted in his bed. It was the first day of summer; another summer in the hot, stuffy cupboard where he'd spent most of his time since the boa constrictor incident.

The boa constrictor incident. Harry frowned. Why could he do things like that – talk to snakes, make glass disappear – when no one else could? For, in the long, hot nights in the closet, he had realized that perhaps _he_ had done something to the glass after all.

And the sweater with puff balls, and his hair. Maybe, he thought, they're gifts to fight back against the Dursleys. Otherwise, he'd be so utterly powerless – Harry cut the thought off, turned in his bed, and went to sleep.

Magic powers – ridiculous!

__

Lord knows

Dreams are hard to follow

But don't let anyone

Tear them away

Harry sat in his new bedroom, trying to figure out what was going on, and rubbed his tender new bruises. What had happened that day?

His dreams that night were horrible, filled with the flash of green light and the scream, again, and again, and again. 

What was going on?

Harry turned over in his bed. It was hopeless, absolutely hopeless. No matter what happened, he'd be stuck there with the horrid Dursleys forever; no matter what odd things happened, they'd just try to punish him more. The bedroom was wonderful, of course, but what did it matter, compared with a life of drudgery?

_Why didn't I die with my parents?_ Harry thought in despair.

__

Hold on

There will be tomorrow

In time

You'll find the way

"Harry. Yer a wizard." The words echoed in Harry's head again and again and again. He was a wizard. His parents didn't die in a car crash. Everything he'd been told was untrue.

Then why did he feel so happy?

Harry smiled, knowing that, somehow, he'd found his ticket away from the Dursleys.

__

And then a hero comes along

With the strength to carry on

And you cast your fears aside

And you know you can survive

So when you feel like hope is gone

Look inside you and be strong

And you'll finally see the truth

That a hero lies in you

"GRYFFINDOR!" yelled the Hogwarts Sorting Hat. Harry Potter has begun to fulfill his destiny.

**__**

A/N: If anyone is so perceptive as to notice that the style changes halfway through, it's because I finished the fic three months after I started it. I've been absent from fanfiction.net for a long time, and I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it!

Thanks!

~*Alanna*~ 


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